Paul Morrissey

Paul Morrissey was an American film director and a defining figure in independent and underground cinema. He studied literature and initially worked in other professions before shooting his own short films in the 1960s. Through Gerard Malanga, he met Andy Warhol and soon became one of the central figures at Warhol's “Factory,” where he managed production and public relations and realized his first major film projects. Morrissey became famous with films such as Flesh (1968), Trash (1970), and Heat (1972), which portrayed the lives of outsiders and marginalized figures in a relentless yet empathetic manner. He later went on to make films such as Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), Blood for Dracula (1974), Forty Deuce (1982), Mixed Blood (1984), and Spike of Bensonhurst (1988). His films are characterized by a mixture of provocative openness, ironic play with genre conventions, and classic narrative cinema. Morrissey saw himself as an independent artist, even though his name remained closely associated with the Factory and Warhol's circle. With his unmistakable style, which oscillated between underground aesthetics and narrative cinema, he is still considered one of the defining voices of American independent film today.